


A Study of Dreams

by amaresu



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Typical Weirdness, Gen, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-21 06:31:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17038538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaresu/pseuds/amaresu
Summary: Jon dreams.  He's not the only one.





	A Study of Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [infernal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/infernal/gifts).



> Many, many, thanks to Rose Fox for the beta.

It takes him far too long to realize he's dreaming. Or perhaps not long enough. It's hard to tell. He does realize he’s in a nightmare at some point, though. An endless march of familiar nightmares surrounds him in a soothing embrace.

He cycles through the nightmares—not his nightmares, those from people who came to him to tell their stories. It’s not new to walk their nightmares; thinking on it, he's not sure when he has last dreamed his own nightmares. It has been a long time since Mr. Spider visited him requesting a guest for dinner. Instead the steady swirl of familiar/not familiar nightmares goes past. 

He always stops at the yellow door, situated just where she said it was on an outside wall that should lead to nothing but air. He can remember Helen standing in this nightmare, once. Now there's nothing. He thinks he could walk through the door if he tried. The thought terrifies him as much as it draws him forward. He liked Helen.

There is something missing. A nightmare he should have. A nightmare he doesn't have.

Tim is dead. That is not the missing nightmare. He can remember it, though, briefly as he held it. 

Georgie stands and watches him, sadness on her face. She doesn't appear in the nightmare often, but there is a comfortable familiarity in nightmares that have nothing to do with fear. Old friends and memories. He thinks it may be the last place she can find Alex. Eventually he yells at her, screams like he never would if they were both awake, “Stop staring at me like that!”

The sadness falls from her face and is replaced with a small smirk. “Stop moping then.”

The nightmare fades. He wishes he could find Daisy. He wishes Daisy could find him. Basira is no help.

“I'm not moping,” He doesn't yell this time. She still stands there, small smirk on her face. He suspects she thinks he’s sulking, but he won’t dignify that.

No matter how many times he walks down the coffin, it never leads anywhere. He vaguely remembers Daisy killing one of the delivery men, ripping him apart with her bare hands, but they both stand on the side of the road waiting for her to return to her nightmare. He thinks it might no longer be her nightmare, just a statement given to him.

Georgie is walking a slow circuit of the room where she lost her fear. “Your heart isn't beating. They have you on a respirator, not that it's needed, but I think it makes the doctors feel better.”

“Oh, dear.” He has to sit down for a moment. “What about Elias? I wouldn't have thought he'd leave me in a hospital.”

“Martin's plan worked.” She smiles fully at him, “You should talk to him. He cries all over your bed sheets.”

The Eye is watching. Always watching. He understands it and part of him loves it as much as he used to fear it. More than he ever feared Jane Prentiss. He thinks he understands why she stuck her hand in the wasp’s nest.

He leans against the yellow door. “I'm sorry. I liked Helen as much as I disliked Michael.”

The creature that calls itself Helen may or may not hear him, but he doesn't open the door. Perhaps, when he wakes, he'll find an empty stairway twisting in odd ways or a branching set of hallways that all look the same and say his apologies there. If he wakes.

Georgie meets him at the door of her nightmare. “Why are you still here?”

He rests his head on her shoulder, solid even in this place. “Why doesn't Martin have nightmares?”

He screams up at the Eye. He has no idea how long it's been. Days, weeks, months, hours, or even seconds. It could be an eternity or a blink of the eye. The Endless Watcher doesn't care; it will watch his suffering as he watches theirs.

Martin jumps and brandishes a spatula at him. “Jon?”

“A spatula?” He's never spent any time imagining what Martin's apartment would look like. In that time he's never spent he certainly never thought there would be more books on poetry and bad street art purchased from people Martin felt sorry for as he walked by. That would imply he spent time thinking about Martin. Still, if the nightmare was accurate, Martin's apartment was depressingly empty. 

Martin drops the spatula. It disappears before reaching the floor. White worms try to wiggle in around the door. The blanket stuffed into the cracks is unraveling and the tape along the edges is unsticking. 

“You're right, though,” He leans against the wall next to the yellow door. “We're both becoming. I'm not sure I'd change that if I could at this point. It doesn't scare me near as much as it should.”

The door still doesn't answer.

Georgie says nothing, just raises her eyebrow at him before disappearing. Clearly done with his shit. She always had the ability to put up with it until she just stopped. Things might have worked between them if he could have ever figured out where that line was.

Martin is stomping on an endless line of white worms. 

“Why is your apartment so empty?” Jon avoids the worms as he walks through the sparsely furnished place.

“What?” Martin looks annoyed to be asked questions while Jane Prentiss taunts him from the other side of the door. “I never got around to buying anything.”

“That's sad.” He walks up next to Martin and sighs. Martin always brings out the sighs in him. “You should make the time.”

“You should wake up,” Martin says in the harsh tone of voice that Jon knows will swiftly turn into apologies and offers of tea. He'll never admit to liking those moments when Martin shows the steel underneath. “Or at least hand me an extinguisher.”

The pile of them sits on the other side of the room. Too far to reach without being overrun.

The Eye watches. It always watches. Even when he's inside a building in someone else's nightmare It watches. 

He leans his head against the yellow door. “If I stepped through, where would I end up? The endless corridors?”

Georgie's room is empty. Empty and echoing. There's a part of him that wonders what it would be like to meet a servant of the End. Would he lose his fear too? 

“Thank you,” Martin says as he takes the extinguisher. With a blast, the white worms are pressed back for the time being. “I don't miss not dreaming this.”

“Why are you dreaming it?” Jon stands against the wall and watches as Martin rebuilds his defenses. “You didn't use to.”

Martin smiles sheepishly over his shoulder. “I got into lucid dreaming when I was a kid. Never could do the whole control the dream thing, but I could decide not to have certain nightmares.”

He watches with relish as Jane Prentiss burns in the crematorium. Not even the smell dims his happiness. He leaves as the doors open. Jane Prentiss is dead and no nightmare will tell him differently.

The yellow door stands silently. He kicks it.

“Why are you dreaming this?” He doesn't hand over the extinguisher this time. “Georgie said you were spending your time crying into my bed sheets.”

Martin manages to blush while stomping worms. Jon may be dense, but even he picked up on Martin's crush eventually. Well, he listened to other people talking about it on the tapes. He's never really understood crushes himself.

“She said I needed to dream.” Martin shrugs helplessly and makes a dive for the pile of extinguishers. “Maybe you should stop?”

Jon smiles at the tone. That ever-so-polite one that meant Martin was a hair's breadth from screaming.

He stares up at the Eye. The Eye stares back. He ignores the nightmares pushing in at the edges. He will control this. “I'm tired of dreaming.”

The Eye doesn't respond. The nightmares push in harder.

He opens his eyes. No one is there, but he can feel the ventilator in his throat. It takes all of the control he's learned staring at the Eye not to panic as he pulls it out. Once it's out he puts his hand to his chest and waits. Eventually there's a heartbeat. It's a long time before there's another one.

The yellow door opens as he's getting dressed. He turns to look at the creature that calls itself Helen.

She stands in the doorway. “I could hear you.”

He doesn't respond, instead pulling up his pants.

“I liked Helen too. That's why I became her.” The creature that calls itself Helen smiles Helen's pleasant smile. “It was good that you didn't go through that door.”

“And now?” He buttons his shirt and pushes his feet into his shoes.

The creature that calls itself Helen is silent before shrugging. “I like tea. I think.”

He laughs, quietly. “You know where I work. Martin actually does know how to make a decent cup.”

“Not that you'd ever tell him that,” The creature that calls itself Helen gives him a look he doesn't quite understand. It looks around the hospital room and walks over to one of the vases of flowers.

Finished dressing, he digs his wallet and phone out of the bag in the closet. Right where he knew they would be. “You can take what you want.”

She is gone when he turns around, and so are two of the vases. He makes very sure of the door he walks out of, not wanting to see what she does with the flowers in her endless corridors. It's easy enough to slip out onto the street. His cigarettes are old, but not yet too stale to smoke. Out longer than he'd like, but not too long, then.

He'll have to say thank you to Martin. Something about his nightmares let him wake up. The pushback on his bullshit, perhaps. Maybe things with Georgie didn't end badly just because of him. Still, she is his first stop. He misses the Admiral and she's owed an explanation.

There is a cab waiting at the corner. Right where he knew it would be.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the part where I thanks to you, dear recipient. We didn't match on the Magnus Archives, but I was reading your letter and thought it sounded neat. Imagine my surprise to see it already sitting in my podcast app waiting to be listened to, probably had been for years, I'd just never gotten around to it. I looked at it and saw 120 episodes and figured there was no way I was going to get through that, but I would put it on my winter listening list. 
> 
> Only work slowed down about a month earlier than usual and next thing I know I'm subscribing to the Rusty Quill Patereon so I can listen to the full length S3 Q & A.
> 
> So, thank you for putting this podcast back on my radar. I've not enjoyed a story quite this much in awhile.


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